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First Black Mayor of Selma, Alabama Elected NPR's Debbie Elliott reports that voters in Selma, Alabama elected their first black mayor yesterday. Businessman James Perkins defeated Joe Smitherman, a former segregationist who took office about six months before the bloody voting rights marches that eventually led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

First Black Mayor of Selma, Alabama Elected

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First Black Mayor of Selma, Alabama Elected

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NPR's Debbie Elliott reports that voters in Selma, Alabama elected their first black mayor yesterday. Businessman James Perkins defeated Joe Smitherman, a former segregationist who took office about six months before the bloody voting rights marches that eventually led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

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